Resistance: Without warning a stone sails over the wall...

photo by Stella Carroll

Jayyous, October 9, 2010, Resistance:  Without warning a stone sails over the wall...

Kahlil and Tarris Musallam












Tarris Musallam and Georgette Kasiss















Gate in Wall





Palestinian Christians: A Family on Star Street in Bethlehem

A chance meeting on Star Street in Bethlehem brought us into the home of Kahlil and Tarris Musallam. Merriam Mankga, another Ecumenical Accompanier, and I had been touring the old city and were taking the Star Street short cut back to the EA residence. The Musallams wanted to show us the guest room they have to rent. As the conversation continued, mostly with Kahlil who speaks some English, they traced ten years of struggle with the Israeli government over the building of the wall before losing their business five years ago. Kahlil and Tarris owned a restaurant near the traditional site of Rachel’s Tomb on Hebron Road, a site important to both Muslims and Jews.

Hebron Road, we are told, has been a busy commercial area and a thriving neighborhood. Today many of the store fronts are shuttered but remain beside the road as a reminder of a busier time. Other shops, like the Musallam restaurant named Tomb Rahel, disappeared within a double line of concrete slabs surrounding the Tomb, making them unavailable to their owners. A grocer whose store still serves the neighborhood, but at a 25% reduced rate of business, said that over 80 businesses were lost to the construction of the wall on this street.

To understand what losing the restaurant meant to Kahlil, Tarris’ sister Georgette described at a later meeting with me this incident. For about six months after the wall cut Kahlil off from his restaurant, a military officer allowed him to come each day, knock on the gate closest to his business, and be admitted for ten minutes to visit the restaurant site. Five years later, he walks daily to this same gate and then turns back to attend mass at St. Catherine Roman Catholic Church. For Tarris and Kahlil the shock of losing their restaurant had been preceded by the death of their teenage son in a car accident.

Today Kahlil’s health prevents him from working and he worries about finances. Tarris works part time as a monitor on a bus taking children to a private school. Star Street is some distance from the Hebron Road neighborhood where they once had their restaurant. Tarris returns to attend a women’s group at the Sumud House, which is affilated with Pax Christ International and locally with the Arab Educational Institute. The Institute promotes understanding among all three religions, Islam, Christianity and Judaism, by providing programs for adults, youth and children. Here Georgette sings in a women’s choir whose program focuses on the traditional Palestinian songs.

Over a meal prepared by Tarris of traditional Palestinian food, she and Georgette talked about their lives. Tarrir worries for her husband’s health and their financial needs. This includes the repayment of loans used to purchase the house next door which belonged to a relative. He was approached by a Muslim who wanted to buy the house. Tarris and Kahlil borrowed money to buy the house. This transaction points up the concern by some in the Old City to keep the real estate with Christian owners. At one time Bethlehem was predominantly a Christian community but according to a 2007 study the city’s Christian population is 28.26% of a total population of 25,266. ( 1)

The continuing decline in economic opportunities is a major reason given by Palestinians, after freedom and security, for considering emigration.(2) The Christian population feels the loss keenly. Under Israeli occupation access and movement are continually changing, not by a legislative process but by military decree. Better paying jobs in Israel are limited to West Bank Palestinians by a permit system. Georgette described how one religious leader had an apartment building built for Christian young adults. The hope was to encourage them to stay in the area by removing one obstacle to finding a secure living.

Georgette nears retirement as a nurse at the Caritas Baby Hospital but there is no pension or social security in the West Bank. For forty years she has cared for family and worked in the health care profession, generously spending her resources where she saw the need. Now she and other retirees face the future without any government support. Nor is there compensation for loss of property or healthcare for those suffering from the consequences of military oppression. As Georgette says, to the nodding agreement of Tarris, “We suffer every day, every day.”

A postscript: Kahlil died on Wednesday, October 6, 2010, from injuries when he fell on his way home from church. He managed to reach home and then was admitted to a hospital in Hebron.

(1) 2008 Palestinian Christians Facts, Figures and Trends, Diyar (publisher), p.7.
(2) Ibid, p.35.

EAPPI-US and Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) have sent me as an Ecumenical Accompanier to serve with the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal to me and do not necessarily reflect those of my sending organizations or the WCC. If you would like to publish the information contained here (including posting on a website), or distribute it further, please first contact US Coordinator Ann Hefften (eappi2008@gmail.com) or the EAPPI Communications Officer (eappi-co@jrol.com) for permission. Thank you.

Jayyous, Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Photos by John Buttrick


At 6:10 this morning I put on my EAPPI vest and began my one kilometer walk to the south farm gate that separates Jayyous village from the agricultural land of Jayyous. The sun was rising: the air was crisp and cooler than it had been since we first arrived in July. I passed olive fields on the village side of the barrier fence where families were heating water for tea and preparing for a day harvesting olives. People have been talking about the harvest practically since we arrived almost three months ago. It is a time for hard work. It’s a time for the extended family to get together to share the load. It’s a time to renew old friendships. People from the extended family arrive to work for a few days or to stay for the whole season. Friends from Palestine, Israel, the Middle East and from countries around the world gather to participate. It is a festive time. It is time of hope that the harvest will be plentiful. It is a time of planning and strategy to get the olives off the trees, sorted, and sent off for processing: some for oil and some to prepare for eating. And for some it is a time of desperation.

It is toward those desperate people that I am walking this morning. These are the people who must have permission to go to their olive trees. There are permits to farm, there are permits to pick and there are permits that allow passage through a particular farm gate in the barrier fence. Each of these permits has a beginning and an expiration date. Along with the correct permit, a person must have a proper ID that has been issued by the Israeli government. All ID’s are not the same. Some will let a person pass through a particular gate. Others will not. There are three gates in the barrier that are in proximately to Jayyous: the North Gate #943, the South Gate #977 and Falamia Gate #927. Farmers go to the gate that offers the easiest access to their fields.

Lined up waiting for the Israeli soldiers to come and open these gates are husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents. On Fridays and Saturdays many children from infants to teenagers join the throng. There are donkeys and carts, wagons and tractors, trucks and cars as well as people on foot. They carry containers for collecting olives, water, food, harvest equipment, and cooking utensils. Each has an ID and a permit that matches their particular situation. The North gate is open for one half hour in the morning, at noon and in the afternoon before dark. The South gate is open for fifteen minutes morning noon and afternoon. Falamia Gate opens at 5:15am and remains open until 5:15 pm.

The South Gate has the fewest number of people crossing onto their land. This morning there were three men, three women, three donkeys and a donkey cart waiting to go through the gate to their olive trees. When the soldiers arrived this morning they did not open the gate as usual. Two of them walk over to the gate and stood. The oldest of the people waiting, a man appearing to be in his 80’s, left his donkey and approached the fence to speak to the soldiers. This man has been going through the gate practically every day during our three month stay in Jayyous. He is small and thin and a bit frail. He appears to have been in the sun and weather for many years. They spoke for several minutes, voices becoming louder and more urgent on both sides of the fence. The farmer passed his credentials through the fence. A soldier barely glanced at them and passed them back. It became obvious that the gate would not be opened today. The decision had been made before the soldiers arrived. The people standing there could see their olive trees beyond the three barrier fences and a road, but they would not walk on their land this day.

It seems that everyone who has been passing through the South Gate since it was made available has a pass for the North Gate #943. This is because when their permits were issued, the South Gate was not being used. Later, when the South Gate became available, people with land accessible from that gate were told they could use the permits they had been issued for #943. They have been doing this for over a year. However, this morning the soldiers had been told not to let these people through any more until they go to the DCO to get permits with the proper gate number. It came as a great surprise to the farmers. Also they are afraid that if they go for a new gate number they will loose the permits they have. Then they will not even be able to use the North gate to travel an extra hour or two to their land.

As the soldiers and the people began to leave, each on their own side of the fence barrier, the Palestinian women expressed considerable anger, yelling at the soldiers. One of the woman soldiers began to laugh at them. When I questioned the source of the humor, a soldier responded that it wasn’t funny but that women were saying bad things about his mother. He could not understand why they would do that. He could not understand their anger. He thought they should simply get the new permits and everything would be ok. The metal fence is not the only barrier between these people.

The situation at South Gate #977 will never get into the daily newspapers or on the evening TV news. Jayyous is like the mythical town of Lake Wobegon that time has forgotten. But it is also a place of real people who are in a struggle for their lives. The news tells us about peace negotiations, the end of a temporary freeze on settlement building, U.S. military aid for Israel, the struggles and the disagreements among leaders of nations and various political parties. We talk about terrorism and mistrust. There is discussion about one state and two state solutions to the conflict between Israel and Palestine. We talk about democracy, theocracy and apartheid. We talk about the big issues of settlements, Jerusalem, the Separation barrier, freedom of movement and what it means to be a “Jewish” state.

Meanwhile, the famers and their families stand at the farm gate, caught in a web of confusion over ID’s, permits, and how to harvest their olives. These people cannot wait 10 or 20 or 50 years for justice. They need to get to their fields and their jobs tomorrow.

I have to leave Jayyous in 8 days. My visa is expiring. But how can I leave the farmers standing alone at Gate # 977 looking through the fence and the razor wire watching their olives fall off the trees to rot in the soil. That picture will never leave me and I’m compelled to show it to you. We need to show it over and over until people of every nation say to Israeli, Palestinian and U.S. leadership, “it is enough. Let our people go. We refuse to participate in the oppression any more: with our tax dollars and government aid, with purchasing of goods from outlaw settlements, with our rationalizations that some people are more chosen by God than others or more victimized than others and with our fear of people who are different from us.”




Negotiations among nations may be complicated and tradition bound, but taking down that fence will set free both the oppressed and the oppressors. And we might even be able to meet each other as human beings, sit under an olive tree, have breakfast and build relationships rather than more fences. EAPPI-US and Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) have sent me as an Ecumenical Accompanier serving the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal to me and do not necessarily reflect those of EAPPI-US and Global Ministries or the WCC.

Jayyous
September 23, 2010
One Village, Two Settlements, Three Hillsides
Photos by John Buttrick



Muhamud










Mustafa





From hilltops to the west, south and east Israeli settlers on Palestinian land watch the Palestinian farmers of Junsafut harvesting their olives. Suddenly without warning they swarm into the valley from three sides at once, armed and out numbering the farmers 20 to 1. The farmers seek to retreat to the north toward their village, but the settlers cut them off and surround them. Armed with rifles, they threaten, “Leave and stay off this land or we will shoot you.” The farmers quickly leave. The settlers collect the harvested olives and take them way for their own use. On the days when the farmers are left alone, settlers will sometimes come after dark to take the harvested olives that the famers plan to picked up the next day by a tractor and wagon or donkey cart.

Jinsafut is one Palestinian village, hovered over by two Illegal Israeli settlements on three sides. Caring for the olive trees outside the village are 15 Palestinian olive farmers. Thabet Bashir is the mayor of Jinsafut. We sit at a table in his office that is strewn with demolition orders received for houses and roads and copies of applications to the army, DCO, for permits to go into the fields to pick olives on their land near the settlements. The olive harvest begins officially on October 1, only a few days away. The permits have not arrived. When they do it is anticipated that they will be for 4 or 5 days. One or two months is needed to complete the harvest of the olives. In 2009 their permits were for one half of the time that was needed to complete the harvest. The olives that were left were harvested and taken by the nearby Israeli settlers who also damage the trees in process.

This year the 15 farmers were not allowed into their fields until March to care for their trees. The reason given for restrictions is “security” for the settlers who have built homes on the hilltops. Israel has plans to be build a barrier between the settlers and Jinsafut on Palestinian land owned by farmers. This barrier will destroy olive trees and restrict farmers even more from getting to their land. At the present the boundary is obscure. It seems to be where ever the settlers decide it is. This is in spite of court rulings that the land belongs to Palestinian farmers. In one case, after five lawyers, NIS 3762 and translation challengers, settlers still claimed land with 3000 olive trees.

It is not only the land outside of the village where there is tension. Mustafa, a Palestinian farmer who has been showing us his land and the Israeli settlements in the hills above, tells how they planted 300 new olive trees near the village. Even there it was not safe. Before the trees could mature, it takes three years of care and irrigation, the settlers came in and cut the trees. This action was reported to the police. It has been three years without a response. The Mayor has a copy of the complaint report. Also, it is not infrequent for the Israeli settlers to come into the village and terrorize the people, throwing stones at windows and hitting automobiles with clubs.

Whenever there is an incursion by the settlers, the Israeli army comes and stands between the settlers and the Palestinians. They explain that it is for security, to protect the Palestinian farmers. However, it is the Palestinians that are usually pushed back or asked to leave their land. However,there was one incident where the army confiscated the olives that the settlers had taken and gave them back to the farmers. It may have partly been because the press corps and internationals were present to witness what was happening. Usually the farmers are alone. Each day the farmers are fearful as they take their families to their lands to harvest their olives.

Another farmer, Muhammud, has not given up even though he has gone from being the largest land owner in the village to one of the smallest because of land confiscations. He has put one half million NIS into his land. He has seven girls and five boys to support. He declares with passion, ”Even if they offer me NIS 2-3 million for what is left, I will not sell. This land is in my heart. It is not for Palestinian or Israeli to rule on my land. It is declared by the Mosque (by God). We want to stay. We want to be strong.”

The olive harvest continues tomorrow and for the next two months. The village farmers have not yet received olive picking permits. Yet, tomorrow the 15 farmers and their families from one small village, who go to the parts of their fields where permits are not yet required, will be looking nervously to the hills where two settlements occupy three sides of the their fields. This one small village, Junsafut, tells the story for dozens of other Palestinian farming villages whose land is threatened by illegal Israeli settlements. Their farmers are also going to their fields to harvest olives for the next two months.

The olive farmers are a part of the landscape. It’s as simple as 1, 2, 3: the land, the trees and the farmers. The farmers are determined that the land and the trees will not be denied the presence of those who have given them life.



EAPPI-US and Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) have sent me as an Ecumenical Accompanier serving the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal to me and do not necessarily reflect those of EAPPI-US and Global Ministries or the WCC.

Sheerin and The Rev. Geoffrey Black, General Minister and President, United Church of Christ


















Sheerin Al-Araz with Ecumenical Accompaniers Brigitte v.Winterfeld and Andrea Bodekull




A PATIO, A VIEW, AND A WALL: THE VILLAGE OF AL WALAJA

“Welcome. We are going to build a 12 meter high concrete barrier and we will need your backyard to give us enough land for security reasons.” Though not an exact quote this phrase could sum up the situation facing Sheerin Al Araz, her family, and many others in the village of Al Walaja in the West Bank, Palestine. The village is about 4 kilometers northwest of Bethlehem and 9 kilometers southwest of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Sheerin greeted us, three Ecumenical Accompaniers from Bethlehem, on her first day home from completing her job in Darfur. She shared her family story and history of the village before driving us around to see how the plan for the wall will surround the houses. It will leave the land outside and inaccessible to the owners.

Sheerin’s grandparents fled the destruction of Al Walaja in l948 and lived in a refugee camp near Hebron. They returned to the area where they lived in a cave for 12 years. Her grandfather built the house where Sheerin now lives in l965 when it became apparent that neither he nor his neighbors could return to their original homes. He finished work on the ceiling in l967 on the day war broke out and the family had to flee once more. The majority of the residents fled to Jordan, Lebanon, and refugee camps in Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

As individuals returned to the area, Al Walaja was reconstructed on the opposite side of the valley. From the former village, 70 per cent of the land was seized in l948. In the fifties, two Israeli towns were established on this land. In the
l970’s, more lands were confiscated for the construction of the settlements of Gilo and Har Gilo. The village now consists of 4,400 dunams of the original 17,793 dunams, according to a recent report from the UN Work and Relief Agency. ( A dunam is a measure of land equivalent to 1,000 meters or about an acre.)

On a later visit to Al Walaja, Sheerin drove two more visitors around the village, the Rev.Geoffey Black, General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ, and Dr. Peter Makari, Executive for the Middle East and Europe, Global Ministries, United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ.) She came to a building with a United Nations flag flying from the roof.
She explained that the villagers are technically refugees. This fact allowed UNRWA to rent a building constructed by the villagers for a much needed school. Acting as landlord, the UN may protect the school from being demolished because it was built without an Israeli permit. Building permits are rarely granted.

The residential status of the villagers is unclear. Half of the village is located within the Jerusalem Municipality and the rest in the West Bank. Those living within the Jerusalem Municipalitiy were not granted status as Jerusalem residents and consequently were declared “absentee landlords.” This means that they are living in their homes illegally and demolitions orders have been issued for homes built without Israeli permits. Yet the Municipality refuses to approve a zoning plan which would establish a system allowing residents to officially submit requests for building permits. Residents of the Jerusalem side of the village have appealed to the Israeli authorities to be included as part of the West Bank but their request has been denied.

We returned to Sheerin’s endangered backyard. Construction on the wall resumed in April. Though her property is not immediately in danger, it will be if the current plan is followed. In another area of town, bulldozers flatten out sections of the terraced land to mark a route for the wall. The Israeli Authorities have confirmed the plan to encircle Al Walaja with the separation barrier. This will make it a Palestinian enclave inside the settlement of Gush Etzion and will be connected to the towns of Beit Jala and Bethlehem through a tunnel – while losing 1,600 dunams more of village land.

As construction advances, hundreds of trees have been uprooted. In one incident, recorded by a July, 2010 report by UNRWA, on April 22 more than 200 trees (almond, olive, apricot, grape) were uprooted or damaged. Four families were deprived of an important source of income. In some cases, the wall will cut them off from their fields that will soon be on the other side of the wall. The Civil (Israeli) Administration has said that agricultural gates will be installed for the farmers in the future. However, in other West Bank locations the agricultural gate system has severely limited access to the land.

One change in the route of the wall has distressed the Muslim population of Al Walaja who with their Christian neighbors have existed peacefully with Cremisan Salesian Monastery. However, when the village was talking with the Israeli authorities about changing the route of the wall, the Monastery reached a separate agreement. The wall now will come closer to the village and this decision has strained relationships among the villagers. Meanwhile they await a court judgment on their petition.

From Sheerin’s patio, she can see between the mountain peaks to Husan, a small village like Al Walaja which will be seriously encumbered if current plans for the wall are followed. Both are located between mountains scored by terraces built up over hundreds of years by innumerable Palestinians who continue to be the living stones in the West Bank. How long before her view is blocked by a 12 meter concrete wall and her patio disappears?

"Hello. What's your name?"

Jayyous, August – October, 2010 photos by John Buttrick


The 4am call to prayer resounds over the village. The call awakens a rooster to crow, sheep bleat, a donkey brays. Multiple answers to each reverberate across the village and over the hills. Then the flies arrive, delighting in flyovers around my head, seeking strategic landing spots on my eye lids and in my ears. A favorite seems to be “touch and go” action from the launching pad of my nose.

I put my covers over my head but the heat of the rising sun soon creates a solar oven in which I’m the roast. I throw the covers back, swat at the waiting flies and survey the waking village of Jayyous from the roof top of our home where I’ve been sleeping under the moon and stars to capture the cool night air after a very hot day.

Standing on the roof, I’m cooled by the early morning breeze coming from the Mediterranean Sea, 23 kilometers (15 miles) to the west. On a clear day from the municipality building, it can be seen along with the tall buildings of Tel Aviv. It is often said in Jayyous, “We can see the sea but as Palestinians we are not allowed to go there to swim.” Mofaqw, a 22 year old university student and a community leader for his generation described to us one evening over coffee in our courtyard, “On the day that the separation barriers come down I will sleep until noon, get a car and drive to the beach of the Mediterranean Sea. I will buy some fish and grill it on the beach. I will swim. I will have my blanket with me and I will sleep overnight on the beach. That is what I will do on the day that Palestinians become free.”

Looking down on the street in front of our EA house I can see to my right the eastern entrance to the village, marked by a fountain in the middle of an intersection. When the rains come in a few weeks, the fountain will begin to flow again. Between the fountain and our house I can see the house of a man who has land but no permit to go to it so he works in Israel. He has left already. We see him passing through the workers gate with three to four thousand others between 4 and 7 am on Sundays and Thursdays when we monitor the entrance through this separation barrier. Looking up the street to my left I can see a few people going to pray at the Mosque. Two houses up I can see the home of a young man who was taken by the Israeli army in the middle of the night about a week ago. His family still does not know where they have taken him.

Lining the street are a series of shops, their iron doors slid back when they’re open. The streets are paved. Our street has sidewalks on both sides, the curbs checkered in red and white or black and white blocks. Lining the sidewalks are six foot high concrete walls or the fronts of houses and shops. Everything is built with reinforced cement columns and cement block walls. Finished houses are faced with smooth polish stone tiles. Most of the houses are two stories high, many of the newer ones are three and sometimes four stories. A few house animals in the lower level, often in a courtyard next to the main house. Next to our house is an open yard with housing for 10 or 12 sheep at the back of the lot. We have lots of sheep bleating and sheep smells wafting in the windows on our west side.

Because land is limited and expensive, houses are built up instead of out. As a family expands a new level is added. One house, for example, may have parents on the first floor, a brother and his family on the second, and a son and his family on the third. They tend to refer to each level as a “house” that they own.

A child’s voice cuts through my leisurely survey of our street, “Hello. What’s your name?”I answer from my rooftop vantage but the child is really not interested in the answer. The children have learned the English phrases at school and want to practice saying them. As soon as we step outside the house, voices come from the street, doors, windows, and allies, “Hello. What’s your name?” They are cheerful children, eager to make connections with the internationals.

A little further up the street on the other side is the first of many small one room shops in that direction. It is open most of the time. We get water, juice, rice, beans and often pita bread there. The shop keeper, Naim, enjoys trying to teach me to count and make change in Arabic. Children dash in and out of the store buying candy and ice cream while we have conversation in English.
Back across the street is the falafel shop. Except during Ramadan, he is open from 7or 8 in the morning. However, he closes in the afternoon and doesn’t open again until 7:30pm. On our first day in the village two of us went at 7pm to buy falafel for supper. He was not yet open but the young man who sells produce across the street welcomed us, corralled some chairs and insisted that we sit until he could make some tea for us to drink. He and several others sat with us drinking tea until the falafel was ready. Conversation was limited by language differences but hospitality was joyfully expressed. Frequently, as we walk the streets, people call to us from their houses to come into their houses or courtyards to have tea and Arabic coffee as well as sweets and fruit. These invitations continue throughout our three month stay in Jayyous.

Moving up the street again we come to an intersection with a street that goes down to the south barrier gate, through which some farmers must pass to get to their fields. At this corner there is another grocery store, the taxi and service stand and a barber shop. I’ve had tea and conversation at the taxi stand waiting for a bus and in the barber shop while waiting for a haircut. The owner of the store is struggling. He borrowed money to stock the store and now he is having trouble paying it back and restocking the store. Part of the reason for the financial strain is a son who is in an Israeli prison. No one seems to understand the charges against him. But Muhammed pays 1000 nis (about $37) a month for food and things his son needs in prison. Muhammed can get a permit to see his son once a month for 30 minutes through security glass talking on a phone. He also needs a travel permit which is difficult to acquire. Sometimes he can’t get a permit because he is considered a security risk because his son is in prison, this includes a permit to his land.

Continuing up the street are small shops selling a variety of items. There is a large mosque from which I heard the 4am call to prayer. At the far end is the municipal building and a school for the younger children. Down narrow side streets along the way are schools for the older children, one for girls and one for boys. There is a recreation building where the volleyball games are held and many residential homes extending down the sides of the hill on either side of the main street. These homes overlook the expanse of olive groves and farm land that belongs to people of Jayyous. Much of this land to the west has been separated from Jayyous by the separation barrier between Israel and the Palestinian territory. The fence has been built on the Palestinian’s land, 3-5 kilometers from the green line border with Israel. Beyond this land can be seen Israeli houses. To the southwest there is an illegal Israeli settlement on the Jayyous farmers’ land. The former mayor of Jayyous has land on both sides of this barrier and adjacent to the settlement. He lost over 500 0live trees that were destroyed during the building of the barrier.

The spirit of the people is difficult to discern. Jayyous was one of the very first villages to organize weekly demonstrations against the building of the wall. They finally gave them up because many felt that the cost in reprisals from the army was too high. Some were arrested. A considerable number lost their permits to their land or experienced many delays in their applications. Crossing through the barrier to the land was also made more difficult by the Israeli soldiers. The number of permits to the land that have been granted have been reduced from 450 in 2009 to 350 in 2010. Also, many have been reduced from one year to 6 months, 3 months or fewer.
Recently a farmer had his renewal application for a permit denied, even though he has a paper saying that renewal is automatic. He is appealing the decision. However, he continually asks himself, “What could I have done to account for this refusal? I’ve stayed in the area. I’ve been a good citizen. Why do they refuse me?” Many people try very hard not to disturb the situation. They pass quietly through the farm gates. They cooperate with the soldiers’ demands, even when they seem unreasonable or unjust. Anger is deep seated and often denied. For many, the separation from their land has become the ordinary way of life. The say, “What can we do?”

However, we also have met some young men in the village who are asking very seriously, “What are the ways to resist the injustices of Israeli occupation? What does it mean to resist? Are both violent and non violent resistance effective and right to do?” International law suggests, “yes.” They are searching and determined to be effective resisters. Their spirits are high. They are not giving up.

There are many other people whose homes I can see or picture from the roof of our house. There is the farmer who invites us to dinner and after the first time in the formal dining room welcomes us to the kitchen table. He explains, “Guests are welcomed into our dinning room. Family eats together in the kitchen. You are part of our family.” There is the woman who cooks pita bread on an open fire outside her home and gives us one hot off the spinning flat iron cooking disk as we pass by. There is the woman who makes and sells sheep/goat cheese that she makes fresh every day. She also makes yogurt and olive oil. Once or twice a week we sit for tea and coffee with her children, husband, and sister who goes to the university. It’s part of the process of buying food from her. There is the man who drives a taxi for us, introduces us to the leaders of the villages in the neighborhood, and translates for us. He takes us into his home to become friends with his wife and children. There is the shop keeper who has been in a Palestinian prison for belonging to the Hamas party. There is the man who was imprisoned in the United States after 9/11 for two years without charges under the Homeland security Act because he is Palestinian. He had been legally living in the US for several years. He was deported when released from prison. He cannot get a pass to his land here. He is in the process of setting up a smoke shop to try to earn a little money. He has had us for dinner and enjoys philosophical and political discussion. He says he has no ill will against the United States for the treatment he received.

I think of many others as I look over the rooftops of Jayyous. We are internationals in their village. There is much we shall never know about their culture and the ways of their village. But what they do tell us is that we are welcome here as long as we stay. They are a people of hospitality. They use the English word, “welcome” in many contexts, beginning with, “Where are you from?”
“The United States of America,” we respond.
“Welcome.”
And “welcome” continues to be said over and over: when we enter a home, receive some tea, are offered a ride on a tractor to a farm gate or make a purchase in a shop. “You are welcome.” And then there is the welcome in the smiling voices of the children, “Hello. What’s your name?”
“My name is sojourner in you village. And you have indeed taken me in. ‘Welcome.’”


EAPPI-US and Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) have sent me as an Ecumenical Accompanier serving the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal to me and do not necessarily reflect those of EAPPI-US and Global Ministries or the WCC.

Jayyous, September 24, 2010
Two large buses pull up to the barrier gate and stop. The first one is filled with school boys the second with girls. The steel ten foot high fence is toped with a roll of barbed razor wire. Beyond the gate is a second gate, a yellow steel bar vehicle barrier that swings inward to open onto a road. Across on the other side of the road are duplicate gates. Passing through these four gates gives access to the homes of the school children on the buses coming from their school in the village of Habla.

When the gates open, there will be one more obstacle for the school children to negotiate: Israeli soldiers in full battle gear holding US M16 Assault rifles or Israeli Tavor Assault rifles. While they wait, some of the boys get off the bus to talk in clusters with us and one another. We avoid the hot sun by standing in the shade of the buses. The boys display some bluster as they jostle each other and crowd around the EA strangers who have come to observe the process of the crossing. We all appear to be casual and unconcerned but we join the boys in secret nervous glances through the fence to observe the soldiers who are watching us as they wait for the appointed time to open the gates.

This separation barrier is located about one kilometer inside the UN established 1967 green line separating Israel from the Palestinian West Bank. The children’s homes are on land in that zone between the barrier and the green zone. Their village school is on the Palestinian side of the barrier. Therefore, each school day the children have to pass through the gates twice, to and from school. The children experience this trip each day from the time they enter primary school. Each child must carry a school pass issued by the Israeli army. All day at school, the children are aware that there is a barrier to be crossed to get back to their homes and parents.

This day, when the gate opens, the soldiers choose to make the children wait on the buses while they let trucks, tractors, cars, donkeys and people on foot pass around the buses to be checked through the barrier. It creates quite a traffic jam. The buses are large and difficult to get around, particularly when there are also vehicles coming through from the other side. The buses are forced to back up several times to make room for passing traffic. It takes about thirty minutes for all to pass.

The soldiers then approach the buses. The drivers get off and their ID’s and passes are checked. (This morning one of the drivers was refused entry for some time. The soldiers said his permit wasn’t valid and he would have to go to the DCO office to replace it}. This time they let him pass. The soldiers then climb onto the buses to check the children’s passes. Another soldier with a camera aproaches each of two EA's. He comes very close and takes our pictures. It feels like an attempt to intimidate us.

As we watch from outside, four teenage boys are taken off. They are told that they have to cross at another gate, gate 109. Two women who are accompanying the younger children are told the same thing. The children wait on the buses while this situation is discussed and phone calls are made about this situation by Machom Watch, observing on the other side of the barrier, and Ecumenical Accompaniers on our side. Finally, after the buses have passed through and are waiting on the other side, the soldier in charge called the four boys and two women forward and let them pass to return to the buses.
When all was quiet again, we approach the soldier in charge to have some conversation. Earlier, before the buses crossed, he had asked to see our passports, suggesting that we might not be authorized to be present, even though we were not trying to cross, just observe. This time we had some preliminary conversation and then he said to us in a challenging tone, “Do you have some questions for me? Ask them. Ask anything you like.”
So I accepted his invitation. I made the observation, “I’m surprised that your soldiers gave the children such a hard time, making them wait so long, taking some off the bus along with their adult accompaniers, and checking the passes of little children.”

“We need to check their passes,” he responded, “Some of them didn’t have passes yesterday. Also, we must be strong with them because some of them will try to run away to Israel.”

I asked, “Would you agree that you have a strong army, a very powerful army?”

“Yes, of course we do.”

“And I see you are wearing a vest and you have an assault rifle. Why are you afraid of these children?”

His eyes flashed. He stepped away from me, turned and said, “I’m not afraid.”

I then talked about living in the Palestinian village of Jayyous and how hospitable the people were to us.

He replied, “Arabs will be friendly and treat you well as long as they think you’re supporting them and are on their side. You can never believe anything that they say.”

We then thanked him for allowing the four boys and two women to cross to the buses. He replied, “Don’t thank me. It was a decision from higher up. I would not have let them pass.”

This day they were all able to pass. Tomorrow the children will once again encounter this soldier and soldiers like him as their bus takes them to and from their school. Every day there will be new intimidating and humiliating encounters. At this barrier there will be unintended lessons learned, perhaps more influential than their lessons at school, as long as the separation barrier remains in place on this Palestinian land.

Jayyous Thursday, September 23
Soldiers in Jayyous
photos by John Buttrick

Anwar’s father leaps up from his mat against the wall to our left. In three quick strides he crosses in front of us to a bedroom door beside us on our right. He is speaking mostly Arabic but his excitement, gestures and his tone communicate almost as clearly as if he was using English. We sit on the mat facing the entrance from the outside and a small kitchen area.
He runs up to the entry door, demonstrating Israeli soldiers crashing through without even knocking. It’s two in the morning. He shows us how the soldiers burst in and pushed down his younger son who had been awakened by the noise and was trying to get up from his mat on the floor. He pantomimes striking him and holding him down. Then in a flash he sprints from one bedroom door to the other at the far corners of the main room. Watching him, we can see the soldiers finding family members in one of the rooms and confining them there. Then, practically leaping over us, he takes us to the other room where the soldiers found his other son, twenty four year old Anwar. He shows us how they grabbed him, handcuffed him and blindfolded him. Then dashing from room to room, he shows us how the soldiers searched the house. Finally, he opens the door to the outside and we see, through his gestures, the soldiers leading his son out of the house. Closing the door he turns to us, speaks some last words in Arabic and shrugs. His eyes are sad. The energy has drained out of him. He slumps back onto his mat against the wall. The soldiers had refused to say why they were taking Anwar away or where they were taking him.

While the ten Israeli soldiers search the tiny space of Anwar’s second floor home that consists of a kitchen area at the front of the main room and two bedrooms; there is no furniture, only mats for sitting and sleeping; other soldiers have surrounded the block around the house. Villagers cautiously watch from the shadows of alleyways and rooftops. They witness the soldiers bringing Anwar out of his house, putting him into one of their vehicles and driving him away.

As this was happening, across the village a similar scene was being acted out. Two houses up from where we live, soldiers entered a neighbor’s house preceded by a flash bomb thrown into the courtyard. The sound awoke our EA colleague who soon learned that a young man living there had been taken away leaving the home trashed after an extended search.

Jamal, Anwar’s uncle, joined us to fill in the details of the story in English. Jamal has spent several years working in the United States. His English is good. He also has learned Hebrew as well as his native Arabic. He enjoys reading books in English and has a collection of philosophy, sociology, history and political commentary as well as several translations of the Bible. He and his family are Muslim. He was in the United States on 9/11. Soon after he was profiled and pick up under the Homeland Security Patriot Act and held for over two years before being deported without charges or a trial.

“Anwar is well liked in Jayyous,” Jamal tells us. “He is in his last semester at the University where he is studying physical education. He is also on the Jayyous volleyball team.” Volleyball is big in Jayyous. At the present time they have qualified to play in the regional championships. The whole village of men and boys will turn out to view this final game, from which Anwar will probably be absent. At this time it is not known where he is being held, how long he will be detained and whether or not he will be charged with anything.


During out two months stay here in Jayyous this story has been repeated at least 25 times. Most of the boys taken from Jayyous and the neighboring village of Azzun, have been under 16, many only 14 years old. Most are released after a few days. Some are charged and held for sentencing. The usual charge is throwing stones, either at soldiers when they enter a village or at Israeli settlers as they travel in cars on the highway passed the village. Convictions carry a fine and several months in prison.

Most incursions by the Israeli army come late at night, but not all. Last week we witnessed a daytime drive through by two army vehicles. Children chased after the vehicles, at a distance, getting directions from others who watched from the rooftops. The children were very excited while at the same time cautious about getting too close. Some could hardly move because they were carrying so many stones. However, they remained too far away to throw them at the soldiers’ vehicles. At one point the soldiers got out of their vehicle to question a man walking on the street. They checked his ID and asked him a long series of questions. A small group of people stood watching nearby. After about a half an hour the soldiers’ vehicles drove away. Other than the children, most of the villagers remained calm and went about their business. As we talked with different people they would say to us, “what can we do?”

There has been another variety of army incursion into our village. Last night five or more Palestinian Authority vehicles came into Jayyous with forty or fifty Palestinian soldiers. This presence brought out the village people to watch: men, women and children. As we walked the main street, villagers frequently came up to us to explain that these were Palestinian soldiers, not Israeli. “It is OK,” they would say. The soldiers were entering each store in the village, apparently looking for products made or raised in Israeli settlements. They are illegal to sell in the Palestinian territories.
The mood was generally festive. People gathered in group conversation and some moved in and out of the stores, making purchases even as the soldiers, in full gear with automatic weapons, examined the merchandise. Children played soldier games as they followed the soldiers up the street, eating candy recently purchased. The people who were the most tense were some of the shopkeepers. A few had closed and locked up before the soldiers reach their stores. One was quickly loading its produce into a truck, apparently to hide it from the searching soldiers. The soldiers remained in the village for over an hour and a half, driving and walking up and down the shop-lined streets. Soon the village was quiet, as if nothing unusual had happened.

The people of Jayyous, and many other villages, find themselves in the middle between two armies seeking to assert their power and authority. As one young man told us over evening coffee in our courtyard, “both armies and both governments are filled with corruption. The people have not chosen them to be their leaders. What can we do? Seeking ways to resist is the only answer. One of the ways to resist is to tell the stories of injustice experienced.” Anwar’s father has entrusted us with Anwar’s story. What else can we do but pass it on.

Accompaniment in Umm Salamone
A Palestinian woman carrying the four colored Palestinian flag and accompanied by two children walked down the street toward us. Behind her stood four army soldiers and their vehicles, situated to block the street against traffic. Behind us a crowd of about 50 demonstrators had gathered for their weekly protest. More soldiers and vehicles stood in front of them, barring the entrance to the main road, the protestors’ destination. They had come to call attention to the Israeli plan which will extend the separation barrier closer to the village of Umm Salamone and thereby cut the village off from their agricultural lands. The court in 1979 ruled in favor of the village but later the court overruled that decision for security reasons.
The demonstrators process every Friday from the nearby village of Al Ma’sara to Umm Salamone, bringing together people from the area, Israeli activists, and, on this day, internationals from Spain, France, Canada and other countries plus three Ecumenical Accompaniers. Flags of Palestine, France and Japan were raised above the crowd whenever a chant or speech was heard in that language. In particular the 65th anniversary of the bombing Hiroshima was lifted up. Our taxi driver Elias said that similar anniversaries from around the world are always included as a sign of solidarity.
The flag bearer was greeted by several women at the intersection of her street with ours. Passing in front of us, they walked with her to join the demonstration. Speeches against the occupation and call for freedom for the Palestinian people were repeated in several languages and accompanied by chants that reminded some of us of the antiwar slogans of the 60’s and 70’s. On this day the words were changed to fit a new situation where international law and human rights continue to be ignored.
Elias told us that he noticed an Israeli commander cautioning a soldier. This week only words were heard; no action by the soldiers was taken. We will continue to accompany the demonstrators, as previous EAs have done.

I work for EAPPI-US and Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) as an Ecumenical Accompanier serving on the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal to me and do not necessarily reflect those of my sending organizations or the WCC. If you would like to publish the information contained here (including posting on a website), or distribute it further, please first contact US Coordinator Ann Hefften (eappi2008@gmail.com) or the EAPPI Communications Officer (eappi-co@jrol.com) for permission. Thank you.

Life of a Palestinian farmer

Friday, September 3
Jayyous
photos by Stella Carrol


The penetrating mid-day heat has drained my energy and left me in a state of semi consciousness. A sound of rain begins to wash over me. I imagine the refreshing rain drops cooling my skin and slaking the thirst of the parched land and plants outside. However, the illusion is soon broken by the realization of the impossibility of August rain here in Jayyous during the hottest driest season of the year. Now confused, I search for the source of this impossible sound of rain. Just outside the door of the house there is a small tree casting its sparse shade over three empty chairs. The leaves of that tree are vibrating in a very slight breeze, performing like a giant rain stick in constant motion.

Earlier we had crossed a farm gate checkpoint and were now sitting together in a comfortable room in Abu Azzan’s “palace,” a shelter on his land that has been transformed into a small home away from home. We sip coffee after a very substantial lunch. We are taking refuge from the blazing sun. There is quiet conversation and some are taking naps. It is very still outside. All life seems to be on hold, waiting for relief from the mid-day heat.

The refreshing sound of the “rain tree” and another round of cold drinks revive us enough to listen to 69 year old Abu Azzum’s stories about his life under Israeli occupation. He has showed us his land, staked out for 1000 new illegal homes for Israeli settlers. This take over of his land is being disputed in court, but meanwhile the Israeli army has destroyed many of his olive trees to make way for the surveyors to stake out the new home sites. He has also showed us a Jayyous community well, one of five, which Israel has metered to regulate how much the farmers use. He tells us stories of his interactions with the authorities and the struggles to get permits to go onto his own land. His stories are filled with pathos and promise. He told of the stump of an olive tree that the soldiers had left. The stump has sprouted some new shoots. He understands the tree as sending a message that the culture and land of the Palestinians will prevail. He tells of a young man who was injured in a protest demonstration and how his blood has watered the soil in a bond with international supporters.

As I write this several weeks later, we have been told that the Israeli military has refused to renew Abu Azzam’s permit to go on his land even though he has a certificate stating that his permit is to be renewed automatically. He is in the process of appealing to the court. A few days before his old permit expired he was told at the farm gate that he would not be able to pass through again because there was a small tear in his permit from being folded and unfolded over the months he has used it. He is without a permit to go to his fields to harvest the fruit and the olive which will soon be ready.

It is not easy for him to be separated from his life long bond with the land. His feet merge with the land as he walks over it, his body an extension of the rocks, soil, and vegetation. The land becomes more alive as he moves over it, irrigating the century old olive trees and the more recent figs, guavas, bananas, peaches, mangos and avocados. He knows each tree and the different amount of water that it requires. As he carefully trims a tree or pulls some weeds it’s as if the land, in thanksgiving, nurtures him, offering to him its deep rooted vitality and persistence for life over the centuries. As he walks through his vegetable garden with an eye for harvesting the next meal {as well as some extras to send home with his guests) the plants seem to drop their fruit into his extended hands. His eyes twinkle, his body is strong and relaxed. This is his land and he belongs to the land.

For now the land and the man are separated. The rain tree beside the man’s front door is still. Man, land and tree immobile, parched and powerless. Within a week this Askadinia tree will blossom. Our hope is that man and land will once again be together to witness its display.

The Askadinia tree grows wild in Palestine and Israel. It may pop up anywhere. It popped up next in the Israeli settlement of Efrat, south west of Bethlehem and 8 kilometers inside Palestinian territory. I noticed the tree as we sat in the living room of Bob Lang who helped to found this settlement in 1967. As Bob talked to us about Efrat, a collection of 15 settlements on 7 hilltops with a population of 10,000 people and 2000 families, my attention strayed to the sound of rain outside the window. And there it was, the tree that witnesses the struggles of a Palestinian farmer now shades the yard of a settler in an illegal settlement, according to UN resolutions, overlooking and encroaching on six Palestinian villages on Palestinian land south of Bethlehem.

As I was drawn back to Bob’s presentation, the gentle rain sounds from the tree grew urgent. “Remember the land is the life blood for the Palestinian farmer.” In contrast, Bob Lang explained, “the land you see on these seven hilltops is holy for the Jews” and ripe for development expansion. He was energized and enthusiastic as he described the development of this land: 23 kindergartens, 3 elementary schools, 3 high schools each for boys and for girls. The infrastructure is in place for many more houses. They are only waiting for the building freeze to expire this month. “The day it expires, we will begin building.” For Bob, the Palestinian farm land is empty land to be buried under the development of more Israeli “suburbs.”

As they expand they have some problems with their Palestinian neighbors, he calls them Arabs, but Bob says, “basically, we get along well.” He told us that neither group wants the planned wall to be built between them. What he does not tell us is that the Israeli settlers are reluctant to have the wall in place because it would restrict Settlement expansion In the future. Bob concludes saying, “It is important for the Jews to live here. It is Holy land for us.”

The Askadinia tree outside Bob’s window and outside the Palestinian farmer’s cottage door spans the divide, rooted in the Holy Land of the Patriarchs and Prophets of two peoples and three Faiths. Its sound of rain falls on the just and the unjust. Some will take off their shoes to be in touch with the “holy ground.” Others will put on the armor of coercive power to posses their “holy” land. The sound of the rain tree and its flowering in the fall continue to suggest an inclusive holiness in this disputed land. It invites the two peoples and three faiths to sit together on the three empty chairs in its shade.

John Buttirck

EAPPI-US and Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) have sent me as an Ecumenical Accompanier serving the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal to me and do not necessarily reflect those of EAPPI-US and Global Ministries or the WCC.

Palestinian Christians, 2010
Photos by Stella Carroll

“Why do you keep asking about the relationship between Christians and Muslims?” asked Afaf Shattara, raising her voice. “We are all Palestinians!” She explained to me that “Christian”,” Muslim”, it doesn’t matter. “We all suffer the same injustice. We have restricted freedom of movement, we face the indignity of check points and we are separated from our land, our family and friends by walls and barriers.” After the declaration of the Jewish state in 1948, she explained to me, Palestinians are not considered equal to Jews. There are Jews and there are non-Jews.

Afaf and her brother, Abu Yusef, are the only Palestinian Christians left in the Qaqillya district of the Palestinian territory. She was born here and has lived here all of her life. She was educated in Nablus and Egypt. Her hospitality, the food she prepares and her love for the Palestinian children in the school where she taught indeed testified that she is a Palestinian who happens to be Christian.

Sitting in the shade of a lemon tree in their garden, Afaf tells us that there are no problems between her and her Muslim neighbors. They are friends and respect each others’ traditions. As if to demonstrate her affirmation, while we were eating supper with birds singing in the tree above our heads, 4 men and a boy dropped in to visit. They were practicing the Ramadan fast. Therefore, they were not offered any food or drink because it was before sundown. They were, however, offered hospitality. They stayed and visited for about 30 minutes. The conversation flowed easily and naturally as we finished our meal.

Later, in answer to my now cautious question concerning reports that Muslims seek to force Christians out, she explained, “some conservative Christians have a problem because they do not like Muslims. This attitude prevents the opportunity to be good neighbors.” She insists that Christians have been leaving the area, not because of any persecution by Muslims, but because they are able to leave and prefer to choose to live in more stable conditions than experienced under Israeli occupation and discrimination.

Afaf has retired from being the principal of a Muslim school in Azzun. She was also elected a municipal council member for a 10 year term. She was elected to that position with the second most votes among all of the candidates for the Council positions. She also pointed out that the mayor of Ramallah is a Christian woman. Her face glowed and her pride was exposed as she told us about her time as principal and when serving on the Council.

On a second visit to Azzun we found 82 year old Abu Yusef sitting in the village square in conversation with four or five Palestinian men. He immediately invited us back to his house. Over tea he told us he was born here and has been a stone mason and a carpenter. Since his father died he has taken care of the family land. However, he has no permit to go to the land so he hires people to do the farming. His four children have moved to Amman, Ramallah and America. He has a brother in America as well. They have move primarily for jobs.

Like Yusef’s children, many Palestinians, Christians and Muslims, have left for better job opportunities. Others leave because of harassment by Israeli soldiers, a dire economic situation and separation walls and fences. More Christians are leaving because the Christian population is more able financially as well as better educated with more business and family connections. A 2008 study reveals that 32% emigrated because of a lack of freedom, 26% because of the deteriorating economic situation, 19% because of political instability and 12% in pursuit of education. Less than 1% of Christians flee religious extremism. (1) According to a 2006 poll of Christians in Bethlehem, 90% of Christians have Muslim friends. (2)

Friendship between Christians and Muslims was demonstrated to me on one recent Sunday. I was with three other Ecumenical Accompaniers attending worship at St. Philip’s Anglican Church in Nablus. During the coffee hour one of the members explained the close proximity of the Mosque to the church. It seems that the church had sold some of its land to the Muslims to build their mosque. Even as the story was told, the call to prayer echoed loudly in the church courtyard. As the call faded away and we could hear each other again, the member said, “the Muslim call to prayer reminds me of our history of being good neighbors for over 90 years.”

Abu Yusef laments for the time when there was a large Christian community of 600 people in Azzun. He and his sister are the only ones left. He is a “Latin Christian.” For a while the priest would come to visit them and to pray with them. Even that has stopped now. But Yusef still has his Muslim friends. Their prayers mingle with his, longing for the time when a just peace and freedom will be their common experience as Palestinians.

John Buttrick, Jayyous, Palestine

(1) Palestinian Christians, ed by Collings, Kassis, & Raheb, Diyar publisher, 2008
(2) Problems of Palestinian Christians as a Result of Political Situation, Joint advocacy Initiative of East Jerusalem YMCA and YWCA of Palestine, 2006.


EAPPI-US and Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) have sent me as an Ecumenical Accompanier serving the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal to me and do not necessarily reflect those of EAPPI-US and Global Ministries or the WCC.

Jayyous
Wednesday September 8
Photo by Stella Carroll

Outside the village of Izbat at Tabib beside the road from Azzun the Qalqillya

“If the bulldozer comes it will come from that way,” Amid said pointing up the road to the west.
Eight white plastic chairs placed in a circle, a plastic stool in the middle holding several Arabic coffee cups. A table at one side holding a water jug, an Arabic coffee pitcher, some more cups and a tea pot. In front of the table on the ground is a small propane burner heating water for tea. An agila sits to one side waiting for the apple flavored tobacco to be lit. Light comes from street lights lining the highway across the road.
We sit between the road and the ruins of four stores, back and side walls still standing, the fronts demolished and open for all to see inside: a building supply store, a convenience store, an appliance store and an auto supply store. Most of their contents are scattered although some items remain on the shelves.
Soon after we arrived we were invited into the ruins of one of the shops to sit at a table and eat supper. Food from iftar in their homes has been brought in for us. Iftar is the meal eaten after sundown during Ramadan. After we’ve eaten we return to the circle of chairs. We drink Arabic coffee and play simple games with two young boys who sit with us.
Later the two young boys fall asleep on mats between where we sit and the bones of the wreaked stores. Men from the village come in twos and threes to sit for a while. We struggle to communicate. Mostly, however, they struggle to accommodate us with their limited English. They tell the stories of their struggles with the Israeli army and the settlers from a nearby settlement. Most of the homes in their village are under demolition orders to make room for an expanded settlement. Their newly built school is also under demolition orders. They have some coffee, smoke, thank us for being there and then go on their way.
And so we wait through the night. We wait for the possibility that soldiers will come by and question our presence or perhaps as precursors to the coming of settlers, whom the soldiers protect. We wait for the possibility that “settlers” will bring in a bulldozer to finish the demolition they began over two weeks ago. We wait with the shop owners. We wait through the night one day a week. They wait every night. And they also wait for days while the court moves slowly to decide their case. They wait for a favorable decision that will allow them to rebuild with financial help from the Palestinian Authority.
Their story is a little complicated to understand. It seems that the store keepers have been renting from the owner of the building for over 22 years. This Palestinian owner then decided to sell the building to some Israeli settlers. This decision to sell to Israelis is ideologically unacceptable to Palestinians. In areas under Palestinian Authority it is illegal. Also, the shop owners seem to understand that because they have been renting for so many years and are still keeping up all of their payments, rent and utilities, they are entitled to stay in the building. It is certainly not justice for the building owner to hire a bulldozer to demolish their shops while their goods are still in them. The building owner, on the other hand, seeks to make it possible to fulfill his sales contract with the Israeli settlers.
The shopkeepers have taken their case to court. Meanwhile the settlers, who now believe they are entitled to own the land, are threatening to forcefully evict the shop keepers who remain at their demolished shops night and day. The Palestinian shop keepers have requested a number of NGO international organizations to be a presence at the stores to protect them or modify the actions of the settlers. We, Ecumenical Accompaniers, are here to observe and report.
And so we wait throughout this Tuesday night until the dawn. We are tired. Yet we can hardly imagine how tired occupied Palestinians are who have waited 62 years, since 1948, to return to their land and homes. Even as the Israeli soldiers continue to support the taking of more land for expanding Israeli settlements and adding new settlements, the economically, politically, and militarily powerless Palestinians wait for justice.
The sun rises. One more night has passed and the bulldozers have not come. We pick up our packs, say “good by,” receive thanks from the sleepy villagers and climb into our taxi to return to Jayyous where breakfast awaits us. I wonder, “How many more days, weeks or years will it be before a rising sun shines on the justice awaiting the people of Izbat at Tabib?”
John Buttrick
Jayyous, Palestine

EAPPI-US and Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) have sent me as an Ecumenical Accompanier serving the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal to me and do not necessarily reflect those of EAPPI-US and Global Ministries or the WCC.

Jayyous
Friday, August 20, 2010
The oscillating fan fails to coax any cooling from the moisture pumping to the surface of my skin from my body which has a core temperature four degrees less than the outside air. Just as yesterday an unsolicited sense of dislike and judgment surfaced from within me that neither reason nor will could brush away.

I was walking through a section of the Jewish quarter in the old city of Jerusalem. The street was wide, brightly lit and the shops were spacious and inviting. An abundance of expensive items were displayed to please the eye and include the shopper in the circle of their elegance. The stores were attended by women and men in stylish western clothes speaking impeccable English. The men wore dark immaculate suits accompanied with accessories coordinated in every detail. The women were equally immaculate but in revealing dresses tight enough to also show those little extra bulges that betray middle age.

The more I looked the more I saw in their welcoming flashy smiles a mocking parody of my U.S home. I looked for a way out, dragging my eyes from the store fronts to anxiously scan each intersection of the street for signs of a path leading back to the place where I’d been living for the past three weeks: as a stranger in a strange land with strange people speaking a strange language. I was angry at being enticed by a corrupt reminder of home. Judgment rose up against these people who were offering me privilege on the backs of the oppressed. The unspeakable, unthinkable flashed through my consciousness: “bad Jew, good Palestinian!”

That fleeting thought clings to me like my drenched clothes in today’s oppressive heat. It suffocates me. It frightens me.

Is this what happens to us when we isolate ourselves in one particular community? Is this what the separation barriers are doing to the people of Israel and Palestine? Is this what happens in the gap between the powerful and the powerless? Is this what happens when the neighbor becomes the alien?

In my rational moments I recognize that the Palestinians and the Israelis have been neighbors in a common land for many generations. It would seem that there cannot be more that a three or four degrees of separation between them. They have a common grounding in the land, common religious sites, common experiences of being invaded and oppressed; perhaps even common ancestry to some degree. I have close friends who are Jewish and an ongoing relationship with a Lebanese family. What happened that I found myself choosing sides and casting judgments?

I can’t deny my feelings. But I do know that they reveal things that matter to me. It matters to me that I keep my balance here in this land of separated people. When I begin to tip over, it’s more about me than about the people around me. It’s about the unfair expectations that I project onto others and onto myself. However, high expectations mean I still care and carry within me hope for the two Peoples and the three Faiths of this land. That means more than a flash of feeling in a moment of confusion. There are no bad Jews and good Palestinians, nor bad Palestinians and good Jews. We are all people here for whom Jesus prayed, “Jerusalem, if only you knew the way of Peace!”

It’s almost sun set now. Soon I will lie on my mat on the roof of our house. The cool light of the moon and the stars will draw the heat of the day into the darkness and give relief to my overheated body. I may be lucky enough to see a meteor flash across the sky proclaiming the birth of an unexpected expectation for humankind. And when the baby cries out in the night, its universal voice will not be distinguishable as either Arab or Jew, slave or free. As I drift into sleep, my unthinkable unspeakable suffocating feeling may follow the fading meteor trail into the infinite darkness.


EAPPI-US and Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) have sent me as an Ecumenical Accompanier serving the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal to me and do not necessarily reflect those of EAPPI-US and Global Ministries or the WCC.

Jayyous
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Early last Thursday morning 17 year old Mustapha was watching TV when there was a bang on the door. Israeli soldiers came in demanding his I.D. and compared it with the names on a list they were carrying. They asked the boy, “where is your wife?” He replied, “I’m not married.” The soldiers conducted a body inspection and then took him out of the house, handcuffed and blindfolded him, put him in a jeep and drove out of the village of Azzun where he lived.

Eleven boys were arrested in Azzun that morning. Nine were released after two days, two others remained in custody in undisclosed places. On Saturday the soldiers returned to arrest three more boys as well as one whom they had just released. All the boys are underage according to international law.

This morning two members of our Jayyous EAPPI placement team have been invited by Abdulkarim Sadi, a field researcher from B ‘TSelem, to accompany him to Azzun to interview two of the boys who had been arrested and now were released and back in their homes. The interviews were held in the municipal building, hosted by the Mayor of Azzun.

Abdula is a small thin 14 year old boy whose nails are bitten down to the quick. Sitting with us he bounces his legs continually, stares at the floor and bites his lip often during the interview. He does relax some as he tells his story, looking up more frequently at his interviewer. He sometimes appears to be on the edge of tears as he talks about the way the soldiers treated him.
“The soldiers raided our house, woke me up and asked me my name. They asked me for an ID and a birth certificate. Then they took me outside to a jeep, handcuffed me, blindfolded me and took me to a military base. They asked me about my health and if I had had any operations.” He tells of being taken to another place where they accused him of throwing stones at military vehicles. They asked him to sign something, but at first he refused. Then finally he said, “OK, ok, I threw one stone but I didn’t hit anything.”

The Israeli soldier responded by hitting the boy two times in the face and calling him a liar. Another soldier kicked him in his back. They then finger printed him and took his picture. They held him “for a few hours” and then took him in a jeep back to his home village of Azzun.

Mustapha was the second boy that Abdulkarim interviewed. When the Israeli soldiers took him out of his house they traveled for about an hour. “They asked me about my health. They then transferred me to another vehicle and took me to another place. One of the soldiers there told me, ‘I’m here to help you, to finish this up as soon as possible. Were you throwing stones on July 29?’ Another soldier said, ‘If you don’t confess we will beat you.’
“I said I was not throwing stones. I would not throw them because I don’t want to go back to prison.”

He then told us that the soldiers “smacked me in the face and said bad things about God.” They started beating him, pushing him against the wall. He was still blindfolded and handcuffed. After an hour another soldier came in and said, “That first man was bad. I’m here to help you.” However, the boy refused to admit to throwing stones or to sign anything. Finally they finger printed him, took his picture and transferred him to a detention center. He was given a brown uniform. Up until this point he had been given no drink, food or bathroom opportunity.

He was then given food and they kept him overnight. They released him the next morning miles from his village without any money. It took him several hours walking and taking rides before he met one of his uncles who took him home.

Azzun is a Palestinian village of 10,000 people on the road leading west to the city of Qalqillya which is located on the Green Line established by the 1949 armistice between Israel and the Palestinian territory. Azzun has been designated area A by the Oslo accords of the 1990’s. Area A is to be administered by the Palestinian Authority, not the Israeli military.(1) However, Azzun experiences illegal Israeli military incursions, often late at night, to arrest boys and young men, to give papers ordering boys to report to Israeli authorities for questioning, and to occupy the roofs of homes and local businesses. It also blocks the entrances and exits to the village for short periods of time. Justification for these actions is “security.”
There is an illegal Israeli settlement just south east of the village. Most often the charges are throwing rocks at military vehicles that have entered the village or at settlers’ vehicles on the road that passes by Azzun. For boys up to 17, a first time conviction on the charge of rock throwing carries a fine of 1000nis ($350.) and three months in prison. A second conviction doubles the fine and gives nine months in prison.

Mustapha continues to proclaim his innocence. “I was arrested unfairly. I have not admitted to any wrong doing.” And Hasan from the mayor’s office in Azzun explains, “Some states use diplomacy, law and reason to solve problems while others, like the United States of American and the Israeli government continue to use a big stick.”

(1) United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Special Focus, December 2009, p.2.


EAPPI-US and Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) have sent me as an Ecumenical Accompanier serving the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal to me and do not necessarily reflect those of EAPPI-US and Global Ministries or the WCC.

Jayyous
Friday, August 20, 2010

The sun rises at our backs into a clear blue sky. The farm gate has opened on time. The farmers with their trucks and tractors, donkey carts and horses, wives and children have all passed through check point #943 receiving polite greetings from the Israeli soldiers and quick glances at the farmers’ passes and the passes for wives, children and donkeys. The soldier closing the gate calls out to us, “Have a good day.” We turn and head back up the hill to the village, his greeting following us, affirming that it has already been a good day at the north farm gate in Jayyous.
“A good day?” It’s a good day when the gates that separate farmers from their fields are closed 22 hours out of each day? It’s a good day when Israeli soldiers choose to give Palestinian farmers permission to go onto their own Palestinian land that they have farmed for generations? It’s a good day when farmers and their families are forbidden to stay on their land over night but must return through the gate between 6 and 6:30 in the evening?
Perhaps it’s not a perfect day but we must take it in perspective. Yesterday several young boys were excluded from their family land because they were over 12 and did not have the proper pass. A farm worker was sent back because his pass had a tiny rip in it. (He would have to go to Qalqillya to apply for a new card.) Yet another’s pass did not match the information in the soldiers’ computer. Others had long waits as the soldiers with U.S. M-16 assault rifles studied their passes and asked many questions. All of this after opening the gates late and gesturing farmers to stay back until waved forward one at a time. Tractors and trucks searched as well as the bags hanging from donkeys and plastic bags carrying farmers’ lunches.
Is this good day “perspective” or does it illustrate the question in the Arabic proverb, “Do you want justice or its cousin?” An English equivalent might be, “The good is the enemy of the best.” (1)
I put this question to some of our neighbors in Jayyous. The responses are always the similar.
“We must survive.”
“We must adapt to the realities of our situation.”
“To do otherwise will drive us into despair.”
“What else is there to do when we lack the economic, military and political power?”
“What can you do to help us?”
And so when the Israeli military jeeps and Hummers come through our village at 2am it is a good night. It is a good night when the soldiers bang on the doors of homes and don’t arrest anyone, but only give papers to teenage boys to report to Israeli authorities for questioning. It is a good night when young boys think it’s a game to throw a few stones down on the military vehicles from rooftops and the soldiers ignore them. It’s a good night when children do not have to witness the arrest of their father.
It’s not a good night or a good day for me, because the question I asked people in Jayyous came from my ignorance. It is not a question to ask people experiencing powerlessness every day. The question is really directed to me. When they ask me, “What can you do?” they are asking me, “Do you want justice or its cousin for us?” They know that my country is deeply involved and strongly influential in the Middle East, including Israel / Palestine. As a citizen of one of the most powerful countries in the world, I have the choice. I have the choice to be a citizen seeking to use our power for peace with justice and refusing to settle for its cousin, coercive power.
While I live in Jayyous, it will be a good day for me each day that I remain aware that it is never a good day when any human being; Israeli, Palestinian, American or any other; is forced to settle for the cousin of justice.
(1) Unload Your Own Donkey, Primrose Arnander & Ashkjain Skipwith, Stacy International, 2007, p.42